Hey guys my brother is getting a new laptop from Gateway, I am sure it'll be able to handle LS1edit or any other tuning program. But I don't know which external port would be needed to hook it up to the laptop. The one we are looking at has (2) USB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire), VGA and Parallel , then the other we are looking at has (2) USB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire), SVGA, Parallel, Serial, PS/2, and NTSC/PAL Video Output, which one should I go with?

 

The second one. There's not USB port connection for LS1 edit yet. Only serial port connectionl. I'm pissed about this too cause I need edit and it won't work on my laptop without an adaptor that's not reliable anyway.

 

You will need a serial port with both LS1Edit and Atap/EFILive V5. People have had trouble with USB coverter to serial.

 

thats sucks.....I want to get the 400 series because I get .4ghz more than the 450 series, but the 400 series doesn't come with the necessary ports

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by paulsws6:
<strong>Hey guys my brother is getting a new laptop from Gateway, I am sure it'll be able to handle LS1edit or any other tuning program. But I don't know which external port would be needed to hook it up to the laptop. The one we are looking at has (2) USB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire), VGA and Parallel , then the other we are looking at has (2) USB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire), SVGA, Parallel, Serial, PS/2, and NTSC/PAL Video Output, which one should I go with?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">IMHO, your really better off getting a used older laptop that is at least 200 MHz CPU and runs off of Win98, nothing fancy.
Being the laptop is in the car, in the passenger seat, more important then CPU speed is how well the screen outputs so that you can see it in the sunlight.
The connection from the laptop to the PCM is less then 50K Baud and most scanners only request like 10 frames per second or less so you do not need CPU power, but rather decent amount of memory for receive buffers for the RS232.

USB can be a big problem and if you have LS1edit you surely do not want a USB problem in the middle of an upload to the flash memory which can end up with a corrupted program and non functional so to be safe get a laptop that has a 9 pin serial port.
Turn off anything that can conflict with the Uart such as an infared or game port, turn off screen savers and any virsus software.

Best is to get a D/C to A/C converter to plug into cars DC so that laptop is not working off its battery for the serial port uses 12 volts and can drag the laptop battery down quickly, esp if the battery is older.

 

Get a keyspan usb to serial adapter. Works with eveything I have thrown at it and plenty of other people use it with no problems. People who are having problems are using cheap quality adapters like belkins. Soon you wont be able to get any laptop with a serial adapter.

Gary

 

Go with the second.

Is this just a port replicator or a all out docking station? the smaller the better... I learned the hard way that USB -> Serial + LS1 Edit = <img border="0" title="" alt="[Sad]" src="gr_sad.gif" /> <-PCM

Now I have a cheap notebook to use, doesn't work well in direct sunlight but does the job. If need be I also got a docking station for my good laptop so that I can use LS1 Edit and atap in the sun easier

 

I tried the Keyspan adapter after getting the no connect issue, and it works great now! Just thought I would pass this along. Thanks to
red ws6 99 immensely! These are the reasons I dig for hours on this and other sites! Thanks again! Sam